D♭ dominant 9th chord

Playing it

There’s no open-string way to play D♭9 on guitar with the root in the bass, so the standard shape is a barre across the 9th fret (9-11-9-10-9-11).

On piano, D♭9 has three black keys (D♭, A♭ and E♭) and two white keys. In root position it spans more than an octave, so many pianists play the root with the left hand and the rest with the right.

On ukulele the usual D♭9 shape is 1312, using four fingers. It leaves out the root, which a bass player (or your ear) fills in.

Related chords

Move a single note and D♭9 becomes a different chord: drop the E♭ for D♭7, drop the C♭ for D♭add9, raise C♭ to C for D♭maj9 and lower F to F♭ for D♭m9.

Where you’ll hear it

Notice the C♭ in D♭9 (D♭ F A♭ C♭ E♭): each note of the chord takes its own letter (D–F–A–C–E), so the minor 7th has to be written C♭ rather than B — the same key on a piano, spelled to fit the chord.